Biblical Theology LII: Titus

The Epistle to Titus is the last of the Pastoral Epistles that really describes that the church is a new kind of community that lives out the implications of the gospel and apostolic teaching in everyday activities and life. Paul writes to Titus to complete what is lacking in the church at Crete to bring about this goal.

Theology: As in the other Pastoral Epistles, the center of the household of God is the discipleship in the Word of God. Since this takes a place of primary importance, it is of utmost importance to install elders who not only are teachers, but demonstrate the Christian maturity that comes from the discipleship of the Word of God in their own lives. As opposed to merely saying that an elder is qualified when he is able to teach, and charging the elders with teaching, as in the other letters, Paul here describes what he means by being able to teach. The elder is to have such a level of teaching so as to be able to teach a wholistic, healthy, doctrine without error, and to refute those who contradict it. In other words, the elder is to be a rabbi, a scholar, and not just merely someone who has read his Bible and a few books here and there. 

This is necessary because it is from the elders that the rest of the community will be taught the truth upon which they are to establish their lives and daily practice. In essence, they become teachers from these teachers and so the elders must have their teaching well thought out and established so as to be able to successfully engage opposing ideas. 

Hence, this teaching is to be taken and taught in daily life. Older men and women are to teach younger men and women to live out the implications of the new creation of their persons that look forward to eternal life in the new world to come. If a group of believers fail to implement this method of discipling the community, and rely only on the elders to disciple the community, they have failed to be a witness to the world around them by participating in the maturity of the community.

Ethics: The particular ideas that Paul wants Titus to refute are both antinomian and legalistic teachings that stem from both cultural syncretism of the lax culture in Crete and the false teachers (likely proto-Sethite Gnostics). Cretan culture was extremely corrupt. The island was largely made up of criminals. Hence, Paul quotes Epimenides in saying all Cretans are “liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons” (something that may have been tongue and cheek or just a more generalized statement--obviously Epimenides was a Cretan and it would mean he was a liar as well if understood absolutely). The reputation of Cretans was that they indulged in all sorts of immoral activity that their culture glorified. 

False teachers had come in to remedy this by attempting to argue that they should follow some form of asceticism, perhaps that of Sethite Gnosticism, which taught a lot of mythic ideas that were added to the Old Testament, and that there was a special lineage of humans who had broken free from the Archons (i.e., angels) of the Demiurge by breaking his commands. Ritual commands, like circumcision, in the law were likely taken as ascetic practices that displayed one’s freedom from the physical world. One gets the idea that these are not regular Jews because of the disputes about genealogies, myths, and commands of men, which would not what Paul would call the Pentateuch. It is also clear in 1 and 2 Timothy that these teachers are forbidding marriage, which is a trait of some forms of gnosticism but not of Judaism.

In any case, such teachings led only to further disorder and immorality in the community. Instead, Paul argues that “the knowledge of the truth” leads to godliness in the hope of eternal life (1:1-2), and that it is the gospel of true grace that leads to denying ungodliness and live in uprightness (2:11-14). Hence, although the Cretan Christians at one time lived in a wicked manner, they have been regenerated and redeemed to live in holiness (3:3-7). 

In each case that Paul says this, he emphasizes that the eschatological hope is connected to the way Christians live. Knowing what is true about the hope of eternal life and the world to come is a necessary truth that leads to right teaching and living in this present age. This is a common New Testament idea. Eschatology informs the morality of the larger Christian life. 

Paul ends the letter by telling Titus how these Christians might immediately apply what he has said by doing good via giving financial aid to fellow ministers in Christ who are being sent out from them.

The letter essentially teaches that right teaching begets right living, and it becomes the witness of the Christian Church to the world. Wrong ideas beget immoral living (e.g., the idea that Zeus is like the God of the Bible and lies, and therefore, being dishonest is morally acceptable). In contrast right living adorns the gospel, and the truth from which it flows, that Christians say they believe. To live a different way is to live out lies that speak against the truth. In fact, if the truth is not taught in one’s household and lived out in one’s daily decisions, it is a denial of the gospel and Christian truth even if it is being affirmed in one’s confession.